12th International Film Festival on Art & Artist orgnaising by JDCA to be inaugurated today

Bhubaneswar: JD Centre of Art (JDCA) was established by Padma Bhushan awardee, artist Jatin Das. The Centre, located in Bhubaneswar, aims to conserve and promote traditional and contemporary visual arts. Film Forum was established in 2006 as a permanent, in-house programme of JDCA.

It archives short and documentary films on performing, literary and visual arts, and artists of all forms: painters, sculptors, potters, dancers, musicians and craftsmen from India and abroad. The Forum focuses on natural and man-made art, the concern being with imaging the arts and ensuring authentic visual documentation.

The 12th International Film Festival on Art and Artists will be presented by JD Centre of
Art’s Film Forum in Bhubaneswar, Odisha from the 12th to 14th January 2018. The three day, non-competitive festival, “Imaging the Arts” invites filmmakers, critics, and artists
from around the world to attend. The event showcases films both long & short – narrative, documentary, animation, and film essays – in addition to panel discussions, lectures, and workshops. An exhibition displaying traditional handicrafts, handlooms, and art books is held alongside the festival, with stalls showcasing traditional Orissa crafts lining the approach to the Festival venue.

The JD Centre of Art’s Film Festival is the one of the only film festivals on art and artists of its kind in the country. Each year the festival features a different focus around which films are curated in addition to its annual celebration of the art and culture of Odisha; the focus this year is Literature and Cinema. Advisory, selection, and screening committees comprised of eminent filmmakers, critics, and artists curate the Festival in both Delhi and Odisha. Aruna Vasudev has been the Festival Director since 2016, with Biren Das as Associate Director. JDCA will open this year’s festival by paying respects to renowned curator and textile expert Martand Singh, showcasing excerpts from his interview with Prasad Bidapa about the importance of handmade fabrics in India. JDCA will show 4 major award-winning films: Iranian film The Salesman (Forushande) by Asghar Farhadi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016; Argentinian film The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secruto de sus Ojos), winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, Swiss film My Life as a Zucchini by Claude Barrass, which won the Cesar Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Animated Film, and Life in Metaphors: A Portrait of Girish Kasaravalli by O P Srivastava, which
received the National Award for Best Biographical Film. The festival will also screen 6 films by alumni from the Film and Television Institute of India, including five works by Nirad Mohapatra: feature film Maya Mriga and documentaries Ahilya’s Wedding (Ahilya ra Bahaghara), Chhau Dance of Mayurbhanja, Dhauligiri Shantistupa, and Pata Paintings; Lakshmi Ra Abhisara by Raj Gopal Mishra, Atul by Kamal Swaroop, The Fourth Direction by Gurvinder Singh, and Kapila by Sanju Surendran. Other works to look for include animation films from France; experimental films from Germany, Australia, Canada, and Iraq; In Return: Just a Book, shot in Kerala and St. Petersburg by Shiny Jacob Benjamin; and a film about Nabendu Ghosh’s close association with Bimal Roy, made by Ghosh’s daughter Ratnottama Sengupta, titled And They Made Classics….

JDCA to showcase multiple films by Odia filmmakers including Raju Mishra’s Lakshmi Ra Abhisara, City’s Step Child and the Water Colour Dreams by Pranab K Aich, Rang Rasika and Soubhagya Mishra by Sanjay Bhatt, and Santal by Abhaya Nayak in addition the five aforementioned films by Nirad Mohapatra. There will also be a number of events featuring
Delhi-based filmmakers, including the workshop on digital filmmaking conducted by Nandan Saxena and the showing of films The Face Behind the Mask by Nirmal Chander Dandriyal, and Faces: The Enigmatic World of Himmat Shah by Vinod Bhardwaj and Rohit Suri.
JDCA has organized a wealth of workshops and lectures scheduled to take place at the Film Festival. Artist Bryan Mulvihill will conduct a workshop on calligraphy entitled Imaging the Word, award-winning filmmaker Nandan Saxena will hold a digital filmmaking workshop Cinematic Films on a Budget, and actress and director Nandita Das will give an illustrated lecture on her upcoming film, Manto.
While the Film Festival is held at the IDCOL auditorium in Bhubaneshwar, the construction
of JDCA continues at the site, located opposite the historic Khandagiri Caves. There are
currently over 2,000 documentaries in the Forum’s archive. Donations of films have come
from: Doordarshan, Films Division, National Film Archive, Lalit Kala Academy, Indira Gandhi
National Center for the Arts, Public Service Broadcasting Trust, Institut Francais, Swiss
Embassy, and individual filmmakers.
Department of Tourism, Govt. of Odisha, is the principal sponsor of the Festival. The
media partners in Odisha are the dailies Orissa Post and Dharitri. The outdoor publicity
partner is the well-known company, Team